JPH05124274A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a printer small in size and light in weight capable of printing on papers having various thicknesses by changing head gap of the printer with simple structure and operation. CONSTITUTION:A printer comprises a base frame 15, a main body unit including a print head 1, and a moving paper feed unit engaged with and holding a platen 14 constituted of a polygonal shape having a plurality of print receive faces and having a rotational center on a part. The moving paper feed unit is made to be opened with respect to the main body unit by a lock control lever 2, the platen 14 is made to be apart from the print head 1, the print receive faces of the platen 14 are switched selectively, and the platen 14 is set again to a printable position, so that head gap can be adjusted properly corresponding to thickness of a printing paper 3.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

The present invention relates to POS / ECR / AT
The present invention relates to a printer used for M or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional technique of this type is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2-116.
As disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 581, a method is proposed in which a carriage for conveying a print head is varied in distance between the print head and the platen (hereinafter referred to as a head gap) by using an eccentric guide shaft and an adjust lever engaged with the guide shaft. Has been done.

[0003]

However, in the above-mentioned prior art, since the variable amount of the head position with respect to the platen is determined by the eccentric amount of the guide shaft, a large eccentric amount is required to obtain a large variable amount. It needed a guide shaft and therefore used a thick shaft. A conventional printer equipped with such a head gap adjusting mechanism has a thick guide shaft in order to obtain a large variable amount of the head gap, which makes the entire printer large and heavy, and can meet the requirements of lightness, thinness, shortness, and size required by the times. could not.

The present invention has been made in order to solve such a drawback, and an object thereof is to change the head gap by a simple structure and operation, and to print a wide variety of thickness of printing paper. -To provide a lightweight printer.

[0005]

A printer according to the present invention has a printing means for performing desired printing by a printing signal, a printing means arranged opposite to the printing means, and having a rotation center at both ends, and a rotation center from the rotation center. A polygonal platen having a plurality of print head receiving surfaces with different distances is provided, and the distance between the print head and the platen is configured to be conveniently set by selecting a rotation angle of the polygonal column. To do.

[0006]

According to the above configuration of the present invention, after the platen in the printable state position is moved away from the print head, the print receiving surface for obtaining the desired head gap is selected, and the platen is again placed in the printable state position. By setting
It is possible to obtain an appropriate head gap according to the paper thickness.

[0007]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1 is a side view showing a steady printing state of a printer in one embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a side view showing an unlocked state of a movable paper feeding unit in one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. FIG. 4 is a side view of the printer in which the printing unit according to the embodiment of the present invention is opened, and FIG. 4 is a detailed side view of the printing unit of the printer in the embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, 1 is a print head, 2 is a motor, 3 is print paper, 4 is a head carriage, and 5 is a motor 2.
A head feed cam having a groove on the surface for rotating the print head 1 in the width direction of the print paper 3 by being rotated by receiving the driving force of the print head 3; 6 is an ink ribbon as an inking means; Indicates a body frame, and the ink ribbon 6 is fed by a predetermined amount by a ribbon feeding mechanism (not shown) provided on the body frame 7. In addition to this, a main body unit centering on the printing unit is configured including a detector (not shown) for detecting the home position of the print head 1.

Next, 8 is a paper guide for guiding the printing paper 1,
Reference numeral 9 denotes a paper feed roller, and 10 denotes a paper pressing roller, which is held by a movable frame 13 having a rotation fulcrum hole 13a in a part thereof and a lock shaft 11 and a contact shaft 12. Reference numeral 14 denotes a hexagonal column-shaped platen as a print receiving stand, and the movable frame 13 is provided by platen support portions 14a formed at both ends.
Is held in engagement with. The six print receiving surfaces of the platen 14 are set to have the distances A to F from the center of the platen support portion 14a as shown in FIG. By rotating and switching each print receiving surface to the print head 1, six types of head gaps a to f can be obtained. The movable paper feeding unit is configured by the above elements.

Next, the main body unit and the movable paper feed unit are arranged on the base frame 15 in FIG. 1, the main body unit is fixed, and the movable paper feed unit is the bent portion 15a having the fulcrum shaft hole of the base frame 15. It is pivotally supported by a rotation fulcrum shaft 16 and is rotatable in the arrow H direction. Further, the base frame 15 is provided with a bent portion 15b having a fulcrum shaft hole, a lock lever 17 for holding the movable paper feeding unit at a predetermined printable position for printing, and a lock as a fulcrum of the lock lever 17. Lever shaft 18
A lock lever spring 19 for urging the lock lever 17 toward the movable paper feeding unit is pivotally supported. Further, a lock control lever 20 rotatable in a direction of an arrow I by a rotation fulcrum shaft 16 is pivotally supported together with the movable frame 13 on the bent portion 15a of the base frame 15 and further urges the lock control lever 20 toward the main body unit side. A lock control lever spring 21 is pivotally supported.

Next, the movable paper feeding unit is opened,
The operation of switching the print receiving surface of the platen 14 to the print head 1 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 2 shows a state in which the lock mechanism is released by pushing the lock control lever 20 in the direction of arrow I.
By pushing the convex portion 17a of the lock lever 17 with the bent tip portion 20a of the lock control lever 20, the engagement between the lock shaft 11 and the concave portion 17b of the lock lever 17 can be released. FIG. 3 shows a state where the lock control lever 20 is further pushed in the direction of arrow I from this state. By pushing the hitting shaft 12 fixed to the movable frame 13 by the bent slope portion 20c of the lock control lever 20, the hitting portion 13a of the movable frame 13 is moved to the base frame 1.
The lock lever 20 can be rotated until it hits 5 degrees to open the printing portion including the print head 1 and the platen 14. The platen 14 can be rotated in the arrow G direction in the open state shown in FIG. 3, and the desired print receiving surface can be selected.

Next, when the lock control lever 20 is pushed in the direction of arrow J in the open state of FIG. 3, the bent bottom portion 20d of the lock control lever 20 pushes down the bent portion 13b of the movable frame 13, so that the movable paper is fed. The unit rotates to the main body unit side, the lock shaft 11 fixed to the movable frame 13 engages with the lock lever 17,
The steady printing state of FIG. 1 can be restored. With the above operation, it is possible to easily obtain an appropriate head gap according to the thickness of the printing paper 3 used.

Further, according to the above construction, since the printing portion is completely opened, there is an effect that it is possible to easily deal with the occurrence of a paper jam or the like.

In the present embodiment, the platen has six print receiving surfaces, but the same effect can be obtained with other numbers of print receiving surfaces. Further, although the paper feeding unit is made movable in this embodiment, the same effect can be obtained even if the main body unit is made movable and the printing portion can be opened.

[0015]

As described above, according to the present invention, the platen is formed in a polygonal shape having a plurality of print receiving surfaces, and the print receiving surface corresponding to the thickness of the print paper is selectively used. This makes it possible to obtain a head gap that corresponds to the thickness of the printing paper, so the thick guide shaft that was required to obtain a large amount of eccentricity was used in the printer that previously required a large variable amount of head gap adjustment. You no longer need to use it.

Therefore, the present invention is directed to miniaturization of the printer,
There is a great effect that the weight can be reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view showing a steady state of a printer according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a side view showing the unlocked state of the movable paper feeding unit of the printer according to the embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a side view of the printer in which the printing unit according to the embodiment of the present invention is in an open state.

FIG. 4 is a detailed side view showing the printing unit of the printer according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Printing Head 3 Printing Paper 4 Head Carriage 7 Body Frame 8 Paper Guide 9 Paper Feed Roller 10 Paper Pressing Roller 11 Lock Shaft 12 Shaft Per Degree 13 Movable Frame 14 Platen 14a Platen Support 15 Base Frame 17 Lock Lever 20 Lock Control Lever

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A printing means for performing desired printing according to a printing signal, and a plurality of print head receiving surfaces which are arranged so as to face the printing means and have a rotation center at both ends and different distances from the rotation center. A printer having a platen of a polygonal prism, wherein the distance between the print head and the platen can be conveniently set by selecting a rotation angle of the polygonal column. 2. The printer according to claim 1, wherein the platen and the print head can be opened and closed for convenience.